A Decolonial perspective on online media discourses in the context of violence against people with disabilities in South Africa
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468140 , vital:77022 , DOI: 10.17231/comsoc.41(2022).3722
- Description: As one of the most violent and unequal societies globally, South Africa is still profoundly shaped by a legacy of segregation and oppression. While race, gender and socio-economic status receive much attention, (dis)ability is an important yet often neglected dimension of inequality. In this article, I adopt a decolonial perspective in discussing online media articles about violence against people with disabilities. By focusing on stories related to issues that received extensive media coverage (e.g. mental health, police brutality and gender-based violence), I problematise the Eurocentric human-rights discourse informing public and scholarly discussions. I also explore the link between current understandings of (dis)ability and the legacy of a violent colonial and apartheid past. As a result of the intersectional nature of (dis)ability, many of the stories involve multiple layers of inequality and different forms of oppression. An explicit focus on extreme forms of institutional and physical violence, while restricting the scope of enquiry, brings the brutality of western modernity and its effects on the people affected into sharp focus. Legal recurse appears to lead to incomplete reparation at best while its failures perpetuate a cycle of marginalisation and oppression. Rather than problematising these structural failures as a result of western modernity and neoliberalism, the media inadvertently obfuscates such links by performing its normative, that is, by identifying and exposing individual culprits or by blaming contextual factors.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468140 , vital:77022 , DOI: 10.17231/comsoc.41(2022).3722
- Description: As one of the most violent and unequal societies globally, South Africa is still profoundly shaped by a legacy of segregation and oppression. While race, gender and socio-economic status receive much attention, (dis)ability is an important yet often neglected dimension of inequality. In this article, I adopt a decolonial perspective in discussing online media articles about violence against people with disabilities. By focusing on stories related to issues that received extensive media coverage (e.g. mental health, police brutality and gender-based violence), I problematise the Eurocentric human-rights discourse informing public and scholarly discussions. I also explore the link between current understandings of (dis)ability and the legacy of a violent colonial and apartheid past. As a result of the intersectional nature of (dis)ability, many of the stories involve multiple layers of inequality and different forms of oppression. An explicit focus on extreme forms of institutional and physical violence, while restricting the scope of enquiry, brings the brutality of western modernity and its effects on the people affected into sharp focus. Legal recurse appears to lead to incomplete reparation at best while its failures perpetuate a cycle of marginalisation and oppression. Rather than problematising these structural failures as a result of western modernity and neoliberalism, the media inadvertently obfuscates such links by performing its normative, that is, by identifying and exposing individual culprits or by blaming contextual factors.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Differently included: A decolonial perspective on disability and digital media in South Africa
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468173 , vital:77026 , ISBN 978-3-030-94121-5 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94122-2_16
- Description: South Africa is a diverse country with a legacy of inequalities which extend to the digital domain. Alongside race, gender, socio-economic status and others, (dis)ability is an important dimension of inclusion/exclusion. In this chapter, the digital inclusion of people with disabilities in South Africa is explored through a decolonial lens. In particular, the focus is on unmasking digital inclusion as constructive absence, in problematising it as a right and in exploring its liberatory (as opposed to emancipatory) potential. By analysing publicly available online texts, it is argued that digital inclusion should be regarded as a complex and nuanced phenomenon, with the potential to address as well as reproduce inequalities and the marginalisation of (some) people with disabilities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468173 , vital:77026 , ISBN 978-3-030-94121-5 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94122-2_16
- Description: South Africa is a diverse country with a legacy of inequalities which extend to the digital domain. Alongside race, gender, socio-economic status and others, (dis)ability is an important dimension of inclusion/exclusion. In this chapter, the digital inclusion of people with disabilities in South Africa is explored through a decolonial lens. In particular, the focus is on unmasking digital inclusion as constructive absence, in problematising it as a right and in exploring its liberatory (as opposed to emancipatory) potential. By analysing publicly available online texts, it is argued that digital inclusion should be regarded as a complex and nuanced phenomenon, with the potential to address as well as reproduce inequalities and the marginalisation of (some) people with disabilities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
From PowerPoint to Zoom: Interrogating the Gaze in Teaching at a Small South African University
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468184 , vital:77028 , ISBN 9781003275060 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003275060-4/powerpoint-zoom-lorenzo-dalvit
- Description: I teach Digital Media and Cultural Studies at a small residential university in South Africa. Due to retinal degeneration, I had to progressively move away from paper documents and increasingly rely on electronic tools and resources as well as a student assistant. In this chapter, I draw on the concept of the gaze as understood within the critical tradition to reflect on my journey with a specific focus on teaching. The departing and arrival stations of such a journey are PowerPoint presentations (which students have come to expect as part of a lecture) and Zoom meetings (which have become part of our new normal as a result of emergency remote teaching). Using PowerPoint reverses the power dynamics in the classroom. Rather than each student facing the all-seeing lecturer, I am placed under scrutiny as I try to memorise my presentation and rely on my assistant to keep up with the slides and alert me of questions. In our context, virtual lectures via Zoom are audio-only due to bandwidth constraints. My screen reader notifies me when students raise their hand and tells me who they are. I can also use earphones to listen to my own notes on a second device, which I found very empowering
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468184 , vital:77028 , ISBN 9781003275060 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003275060-4/powerpoint-zoom-lorenzo-dalvit
- Description: I teach Digital Media and Cultural Studies at a small residential university in South Africa. Due to retinal degeneration, I had to progressively move away from paper documents and increasingly rely on electronic tools and resources as well as a student assistant. In this chapter, I draw on the concept of the gaze as understood within the critical tradition to reflect on my journey with a specific focus on teaching. The departing and arrival stations of such a journey are PowerPoint presentations (which students have come to expect as part of a lecture) and Zoom meetings (which have become part of our new normal as a result of emergency remote teaching). Using PowerPoint reverses the power dynamics in the classroom. Rather than each student facing the all-seeing lecturer, I am placed under scrutiny as I try to memorise my presentation and rely on my assistant to keep up with the slides and alert me of questions. In our context, virtual lectures via Zoom are audio-only due to bandwidth constraints. My screen reader notifies me when students raise their hand and tells me who they are. I can also use earphones to listen to my own notes on a second device, which I found very empowering
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Identity, context and mobile media: A critical digital literacy service learning course in a South African township
- Boshoff, Priscilla A, Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A , Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468195 , vital:77029 , ISBN 978-84-09-45476-1 , doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2022.1419
- Description: In this paper we discuss a critical digital literacy service learning initiative involving post-graduate students in Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in Makhanda (South Africa). As part of their studies, such students co-develop and teach a small-scale, non-credit-bearing short course on mobile critical digital literacy skills to learners in a township school. In South African terms, a township is an (often marginalised) area, present in almost every settlement, in which people classified as Blacks under apartheid were expected to live and to a large extent still do. As a microcosm of the diverse and still profoundly unequal South African reality, Makhanda offers ample opportunities for contact and collaboration across the geographic, socio-economic and digital divides. The Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies, recognised as one of the best on the African Continent, partners with a number of local organisations to support community upliftment and mutual learning. Community engagement, of which service learning is but one expression, is recognised as an integral component of academic activities for university staff and students. Rhodes University offers dedicated training and provides institutional support for activities such as the one discussed here. What makes our approach somehow unique is the adoption of photo voice as a pedagogical device in teaching and learning about identity construction in a marginalised context. Under the guidance of postgraduate students and their lecturers, learners learn about the technical aspects of taking photos to represent their identities using their mobile phone. Such photos are then used as a point of departure for facilitated group discussions about (self)representations, the social construction of identities and the importance of understanding these in relation to their lived context. In this paper we document and reflect on the conceptualisation and first iteration of the digital literacy service learning course, drawing some lessons for the future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A , Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468195 , vital:77029 , ISBN 978-84-09-45476-1 , doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2022.1419
- Description: In this paper we discuss a critical digital literacy service learning initiative involving post-graduate students in Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in Makhanda (South Africa). As part of their studies, such students co-develop and teach a small-scale, non-credit-bearing short course on mobile critical digital literacy skills to learners in a township school. In South African terms, a township is an (often marginalised) area, present in almost every settlement, in which people classified as Blacks under apartheid were expected to live and to a large extent still do. As a microcosm of the diverse and still profoundly unequal South African reality, Makhanda offers ample opportunities for contact and collaboration across the geographic, socio-economic and digital divides. The Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies, recognised as one of the best on the African Continent, partners with a number of local organisations to support community upliftment and mutual learning. Community engagement, of which service learning is but one expression, is recognised as an integral component of academic activities for university staff and students. Rhodes University offers dedicated training and provides institutional support for activities such as the one discussed here. What makes our approach somehow unique is the adoption of photo voice as a pedagogical device in teaching and learning about identity construction in a marginalised context. Under the guidance of postgraduate students and their lecturers, learners learn about the technical aspects of taking photos to represent their identities using their mobile phone. Such photos are then used as a point of departure for facilitated group discussions about (self)representations, the social construction of identities and the importance of understanding these in relation to their lived context. In this paper we document and reflect on the conceptualisation and first iteration of the digital literacy service learning course, drawing some lessons for the future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Online stories of inclusion and exclusion of learners with disabilities in South Africa
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468206 , vital:77030 , ISBN 978-84-09-45476-1 , doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2022.1378
- Description: A quarter of a century since the end of apartheid, the education system in South Africa still reflects its legacy of inequality and segregation along racial and, to a lesser extent, gender and (dis)ability lines. Depending on their situation, learners with disabilities may be accommodated within the mainstream system, homeschooled or attend specialised schools, often far away from their homes, families and support networks. The educational experience of such learners was disrupted during the past two years due to stringent measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures ranged from total shutdown to a shift to emergency remote teaching and learning through digital technology. This scenario brought the stark digital inequalities which characterise the South African context sharply into focus. At the same time, in some cases, digital tools provide a unique opportunity to overcome some of the challenges associated with special needs education. In this paper, I explore the narratives and experiences of learners with disabilities by conducting a qualitative content analysis of online texts such as news articles, videos, posts and relative comments. A focus on experience is consistent with current theoretical understandings of (dis)ability which seek to critique and overcome the deficit or social construction models still informing public narratives. Interpretation of the data within its social context captures the complexity and diversity of special needs education in South Africa and provides a Global South perspective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468206 , vital:77030 , ISBN 978-84-09-45476-1 , doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2022.1378
- Description: A quarter of a century since the end of apartheid, the education system in South Africa still reflects its legacy of inequality and segregation along racial and, to a lesser extent, gender and (dis)ability lines. Depending on their situation, learners with disabilities may be accommodated within the mainstream system, homeschooled or attend specialised schools, often far away from their homes, families and support networks. The educational experience of such learners was disrupted during the past two years due to stringent measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures ranged from total shutdown to a shift to emergency remote teaching and learning through digital technology. This scenario brought the stark digital inequalities which characterise the South African context sharply into focus. At the same time, in some cases, digital tools provide a unique opportunity to overcome some of the challenges associated with special needs education. In this paper, I explore the narratives and experiences of learners with disabilities by conducting a qualitative content analysis of online texts such as news articles, videos, posts and relative comments. A focus on experience is consistent with current theoretical understandings of (dis)ability which seek to critique and overcome the deficit or social construction models still informing public narratives. Interpretation of the data within its social context captures the complexity and diversity of special needs education in South Africa and provides a Global South perspective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Reflections on a course about radical discourses and the digital public sphere at a South African university
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468217 , vital:77032 , ISBN 978-84-09-45476-1 , doi: 10.21125/iceri.2022.0661
- Description: South Africa is characterised by persisting social inequalities, a vibrant civil society and one of the highest internet penetrations on the African continent. As in other parts of the world, digital media promised to revolutionise politics by giving a “voice to the voiceless”, i.e. creating a space for silenced and marginalised opinions, positions and counter-discourses. Recent local and international cases provide some sobering examples of how such voices may at times reflect fake news, conspiracy theories or hate speech. In this paper, I reflect on my experience teaching a third-year Journalism and Media Studies course on radical discourses online at a small residential and historically privileged university in South Africa. By problematising the normative ideal of the Digital Public Sphere as a space for equal, unrestricted and rational deliberation through the notion of radical voices, the course seeks to provide students with the conceptual tools to identify and challenge the boundaries of what is acceptable, possible or even imaginable. After engaging with a set of key readings and a brief introduction to relevant methodologies, students engage in collecting and thematically analysing relevant online texts. My experience developing and teaching this course over the past four years, including the moments of turmoil resulting from emergency remote teaching and learning, yielded some interesting insights in terms of teaching philosophy and practice, the themes chosen (and not chosen) and how students related their findings to the complexity of the South African context and their own diverse experiences.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468217 , vital:77032 , ISBN 978-84-09-45476-1 , doi: 10.21125/iceri.2022.0661
- Description: South Africa is characterised by persisting social inequalities, a vibrant civil society and one of the highest internet penetrations on the African continent. As in other parts of the world, digital media promised to revolutionise politics by giving a “voice to the voiceless”, i.e. creating a space for silenced and marginalised opinions, positions and counter-discourses. Recent local and international cases provide some sobering examples of how such voices may at times reflect fake news, conspiracy theories or hate speech. In this paper, I reflect on my experience teaching a third-year Journalism and Media Studies course on radical discourses online at a small residential and historically privileged university in South Africa. By problematising the normative ideal of the Digital Public Sphere as a space for equal, unrestricted and rational deliberation through the notion of radical voices, the course seeks to provide students with the conceptual tools to identify and challenge the boundaries of what is acceptable, possible or even imaginable. After engaging with a set of key readings and a brief introduction to relevant methodologies, students engage in collecting and thematically analysing relevant online texts. My experience developing and teaching this course over the past four years, including the moments of turmoil resulting from emergency remote teaching and learning, yielded some interesting insights in terms of teaching philosophy and practice, the themes chosen (and not chosen) and how students related their findings to the complexity of the South African context and their own diverse experiences.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
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